Ukraine war volunteers are coming home, reckoning with difficult fight
To Dakota’s surprise, it wasn’t the shelling that terrified him most.
A Marine Corps veteran who volunteered to fight in Ukraine, he has taken cover behind walls as Russian gunfire punched through and felt the throttle of artillery so many times that his catchphrase, “It’s normal,” became a joke within the unit.
What wasn’t normal, he said, was the feeling of dread while he hid and listened as Russian attack helicopters strafed the position his team of tank hunters had just fled. That moment, he said, “was quite honestly the most unsettled I had been the entire time.”
Dakota, who is home in Ohio now after seven weeks of fighting abroad, is among the legion of Western volunteers who have taken up arms against Russia. Like others, he spoke on the condition that his full name not be disclosed, citing concerns for his safety and that of family and friends.
In interviews with The Washington Post, foreign fighters from the United States and elsewhere described glaring disparities between what they expected the war to be like and what they experienced. They recalled going into battle underequipped and outgunned, the occasional thrill of blowing up Russian vehicles, and feeling torn over whether to go back to Ukraine. Some intend to do so. Others saw friends die and decided enough is enough.
For several, an inflection point came in late April when 22-year-old Willy Joseph Cancel, another Marine Corps veteran, was killed in combat northwest of Mykolaiv, a region that has seen ferocious violence as Russian commanders have sought to widen territorial gains. The full circumstances surrounding Cancel’s death remain a mystery, and his body has not been recovered. Attempts to speak with Cancel’s family were unsuccessful.
There are no known U.S. military personnel in Ukraine, and the Biden administration has sought to discourage American citizens from independently joining the fight, though it is not against the law to do so. Officials have said that the battlefield is complex and dangerous, and that Americans wishing to help the Ukrainian cause should look to do so by other means. And while the exact number of Americans volunteering is unknown, an estimated 4,000 expressed interest after the invasion in late February. Many entered the fight after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky personally appealed to foreign volunteers to journey there and fight.
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Niece is married to a medic and he is over there.
Obviously no more info can be disclosed.
Also, I intended no disrespect to your nephew-in-law with my comment below. I hope he makes it home in one piece, with no wounds be they physical or mental.
I’m going to venture out on a limb here and say the fact that this was published by Stars and Stripes should give everyone an idea of the ideological bent of our military.
If any of the readers remember when the invasion first happened, many of the people looking to go over there were Antifa and other left-wing malcontents. Certainly, not everyone over there falls into one of those categories. Nonetheless, they are bringing their lessons home to be used domestically here.
It would be interesting to know how many people that were interviewed in that article were left wing versus right wing.
Also, the Ukrainian naturalized citizen reminded me of some friends of a certain Central American country that are citizens of the US. One was American by birthright and the other became naturalized a few years back. Despite I’m sure what are their best efforts, they still view their other country as home. That’s all well and good but for countries that are of particular interest, that is a real problem as you all have divided loyalties especially among Middle Eastern countries for example. Something to think about…
Scout knows who these friends are…good liquor and all